Update on Crete, 7 to 11 April

Our excursion to Crete began on an overnight ferry, the Knossos Palace. After checking into our rooms, our group gathered spontaneously on the windy fore-deck, starboard side, to watch the lights of Athens recede. The light of another ferry far ahead of us remained. (Peering out of my porthole in the wee hours, I glimpsed what I first took for an island: the slender wedge of the moon on the horizon, blood red, rising as in a poem by Sappho we had discussed the day before:

Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her ...)

We arrived in Heraklion early on 8 April and boarded our bus to breakfast at the Olympic Hotel downtown, located just off the old Venetian section with extensive pedestrian markets that reach back down towards the port. After breakfast, our bus took us to the remains of the actual Knossos Palace, excavated and partially reconstructed by Sir Arthur Evans, whose bust overlooks the entry area and whose vision still frames what one sees there. While duly impressed by the extensive palace and its uses as Michael Wedde explained them, many students found themselves more deeply engaged by the Palace of Phaestos, visited the next morning, whose excavators did not so presume to place their speculative reconstructions atop intact remains. The imagination roams freely at Phaestos. Following our group tour, the students wandered there independently. Sometimes wind lifted through the pines at the edge of the plateau with a timeless sound.

From Phaestos we made our way to Agia Triada and, for the heart of the afternoon, the beach at Matala. The hitherto windy day had turned warm at last, prime for sunbathing and a swim.

On the 10th we enjoyed a similarly absorbing visit to Tylissos, an extensive sub-palace located high in the hills; a long bus ride along the north coast of Crete to Rethymnon, where we picnicked on the grounds of a spectacular, wind-buffetted Venetian fort above the sea; and then proceeded to Hania, where we set up the Kydon Hotel, a fine establishment a few blocks from the lovely, much-photographed port that features good tavernas and interesting shops. Hania’s small but marvelous archaeological museum was our next morning’s destination.

A bus took us that evening to Souda port, where we boarded another overnight ferry for Piraeus.

6:00 AM, Monday, April 12: Good morning Athens!

Photos from Crete